Women Gender In Middle East

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

Middle Eastern women are often portrayed in the Western media as oppressed, and a fixed, unchanging notion of “Islam” is frequently cited as the most significant source of such oppression. But what exactly does studying “Middle Eastern women” mean? How do we begin to define the concepts of “freedom” or “oppression”? This colloquium is designed to provide students with a nuanced historical understanding of issues related to women and gender in the region, which includes countries from Morocco to Iran, and including Turkey. After an introduction to the main themes and approaches in the study of gender in the region, the first part of this course examines the development of discourses on gender as well as the lived experiences of women from the rise of Islam to the highpoint of the Ottoman Empire. The second part focuses on the 19th- century to the present. Topics to be covered include the politics of marriage, divorce, and reproduction; gendered political and economic participation; feminism, nationalism, and Islamism; sexuality; and finally, the impact of war, uprisings, and conflict on gendered lives